Broken
by Aznaria
Summary: Katniss has returned home to District 12 at the end of Mockingjay. Her recovery has been less than promising since the hospital and she's trying to find a source of comfort from her increasingly unsettling nightmares in Peeta. Rated M for smut, read more!
1. Chapter 1

**Summary: A multi-chapter story concerning a broken Katniss at the end of Mockingjay struggling to hold onto herself, and seeking comfort in the only one left that can offer it: Peeta. Problem is, Peeta still isn't quite recovered from the horrid conditioning of the Capitol and is confused by his memories and feelings. Rated M for future dirty scenes!  
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It's been a bad night, the worst night in a long time since I've been returned to my home in the Seam; if you could even call it a home anymore. With so many of us gone now, the ashen state of the district itself, and the downtrodden spirit of those fighting the memories to rebuild, this place no longer evokes the old comfort of familiarity, of a people trying to scrape by together as a disjointed family. Coping quickly, pressing forward, those are things that are expected of humanity in times of crisis. But how much can a single person expect to handle? How many times must one break in their lifetime, have loved ones ripped from them prematurely, before the fragile line is snapped?

I wake up shuddering violently despite the lukewarm spring night, a noticeable sheen of sweat coating my still-new patchwork skin. I've been tossing, maybe even flailing, because the thin blanket I had curled under is haphazardly strewn on the floor. Buttercup has even retreated from his usual guard post on my windowsill, his lamp-like golden eyes peering cautiously from beneath a small desk on the right side of the room.

"Traitor," I manage to choke out as I sit up and rest my head in my shaking hands. My fingertips notice a damp residue of tears has trickled down the sides of my cheeks and I struggle to recall the nightmare that woke me. My mind is imageless, which is a strange first for me, but nothing can shake the intense feeling of terror and heartbreaking sorrow that fills me. Even as I sit cross-legged and mostly awakened on my bed, I'm choking back sobs with no just cause. It's nights like these that are the hardest to cope with living on my own.

I manage to drag myself to the bathroom, refusing to look into the mirror but splashing my face with cool water. Leaning back against the wall with a towel held shakily to my face, the sobs refuse to quell and I slip to the floor in a pathetic heap, shivering and letting my mind flood with these terrifying emotions.

Dr. Aurelius warned me about these nights, that after experiencing so much loss and witnessing the cruelties of warfare for so long, nightmares would surely manifest. Hell, I've been having nightmares since my father died, but since my involvement with the first Games they've only been multiplying in severity. It was more manageable in the hospital, administering drugs as necessary to help me cope with the memories, the new skin steadily healing over my old burn scars. But I can't be hospitalized forever, and once I made a sufficient clinical improvement they transported me back here to 12 under the impression that he would continue treating me from home.

But I was merely numbed in the hospital, the drugs and the escape of the memories left me blind to the possibilities of the nightmares returning with such a vengeance, leaving me effectively incapacitated and unable to sufficiently recover. But what do I do now that my brokenness has escalated into this... hysteria? This utter weakness that's hit me so hard that I can barely cope with a simple routine in a warless life. What I have truly become in comparison to what I once was is so utterly depressing I can barely comprehend it at my best moments these days.

Comfort. Security. What's left to offer such precious feelings anymore? My father's hunting jacket is hung on the coat rack downstairs by the door. I picture it in my mind and I'm crawling for the stairs now in a delirium of terror, recalling how I wore it the first few nights I came back to 12. Once I reach the ground floor, I shudder at the change in temperature. Greasy Sae must've only left an hour or so ago because the embers in the fireplace are still crackling heat into the room, and the moon hasn't risen very high in the sky yet. Using the railing I'm able to walk my way slowly over to the garment and I drape myself in the leathery, woodsy smell of it before slipping into a chair by the fire. Curling my legs up into the seat, I attempt a full breath and hiccup slightly, wrapping my arms around my knees and rocking gently there as a fresh bath of tears roll off my cheeks. The feelings from the nightmare are culled by maybe a fifth of their initial intensity, only enough to control the heaving sobs that wracked my body upstairs. But the tears continue to fall and I'm only whimpering softly to myself now, trying to think of some other way to cope with these emotions.

I look into the fireplace embers absently and notice from the corner of my eye a light in the house next door. Not Haymitch's house, but Peeta's. The thought of Peeta these days brings mixed emotions. Our oldest memories are vivid enough still, for me. But his enormous setback with the tracker jacker venom has all but destroyed any hope for us to ever return to the sort of relationship we once had. He's surely made an improvement from the bloodthirsty hate he initially felt, but it just hasn't ever felt right since his capture by the Capitol.

Even still, the memories of the cave in the first Games, the Victory Tour when I would allow him to share my bed, all of it floods my distraught mind. Does he remember these things after all the Capitol's hateful conditioning? The security of sleeping next to Peeta was some unthinkable luxury back in those times, something I couldn't remember feeling since my family was whole. The mere thought of curling up beneath his protective arms brings on a whole new wave of tears and a threatening hiccup deep within my chest, but only from the thought of possible relief, however temporary, from this seemingly never ending pain.

It's then that I feel my body standing on its own and reaching for the door. The movements are fueled by some desire deep within, a desire of self-preservation that I have to attempt no matter how much in my heart I feel it will fail.


	2. Chapter 2

With my father's hunting jacket still hanging off my shaking shoulders, I step into a plain pair of slippers and leave my house in Victor's Village. But I wander to the left, not straight off the path as I normally would go in the direction of the Meadow. If it weren't so late and I weren't in such an inexplicably unsound state, I'd probably be doing just that. The act of hunting helps to focus me and numb everything else I've buried inside, but I've run enough from the pain for one lifetime, I think.

As I approach Peeta's house, a small and different sort of fear beings creeping along the nape of my neck. Even through the severity of emotions caused by the unknown nightmare, this feeling is somehow more urgent and dangerous. It causes me to draw the jacket more tightly around my body and stop in my tracks, closing my eyes tightly for the moment. What do I do if he turns me away?

There are many powerful flashbacks that attempt to convince me otherwise throughout our time of knowing each other, but at least ninety-nine point nine percent of such images happened before he became different, corrupted by the Capitol, seeing me in an evil and horrible light. Why now, after the veil of childhood love is ripped from his eyes, should he find any reason to humor the need of comfort for what's left of me? But then I'm reminded of one singular time that causes my feet to move slowly again, regain a tiny speck of hope in the darkness of my misery.

A forced kiss, held until I'm breathless over his shuddering form. His eyes, pupils so dilated that you couldn't see the blue ice in them. The terror in his expression as he resists the pull of his nightmares, the ones that urge him to kill me. The grip in my hands as they clamp over his own as tightly as possible. My demands: "Stay with me."

His response: "Always."

I'm at his door now, shivering as a breeze stirs up the hem of my long nightshirt against the sensitive and scarred skin of my calves. Before I can even raise my weak fist and knock, the door opens and Peeta's standing in front of me in his own nightclothes, a simple t-shirt and pair of flannel pants, his golden eyebrows arched in confusion. I don't speak because there's a burning in my throat, the tears threatening to spill over, but he fills the silence for me.

"Katniss? What are you…?" He trails off because the sobs rip from within and heave my body again, the simple sound of his voice enough to break the remaining weak hold on my temporary composure. It wasn't anything about the pitch or tone of the phrase, nothing to do with the choice of words, the soft issuance of my name in the rougher cords of his throat, none of that. I fall into him because I know now that Peeta won't push me away and he doesn't, he allows me to collapse into his chest and cry as he stumbles backwards into the house, his prosthetic leg kicking the door shut behind us.

He manages to bring me to a small couch positioned in front of his fireplace where the flames are licking eagerly around the pine that scents the room and warming us with gentle surges of heat. My head hides in the crook of his shoulder as his arms wrap around me to try and stop my shuddering, tears flowing all over his shirt. He's hushing me, smoothing down the back of my hair with an unsteady hand but the level of comfort I'm being given is not enough to stop my hysterics. Or maybe I've just stifled the terror of my dreams for so long now that there's no holding back the river once the dam is broken.

I'm not sure how long I cry until I manage to slip into unconsciousness, but when I wake up there's a steady stream of sunlight coming through the window that warms my face. A soft melody of chirps issues from some point outside, and I can still smell charred bits of pine that burned so fiercely last night in the fireplace. Last night…

Before even opening my eyes, I notice that Peeta must have shifted me as I slept. He's got me sandwiched between the back of the couch and his own body, the weight of one of his arms apparent as it drapes protectively over me. I figure he's still asleep because I can hear and feel the rhythmic draw and release of his breath despite the fact that his face is too far up to see properly from this angle. I sigh deeply and manage to do so without one hint of a sobbing hiccup, which seems like a monumental achievement in comparison to the dim remembrance of my meltdown last night.

I had slept peacefully, a luxury I've been denied since I've returned to my broken home without morphling to keep me under, but it's been so long that a groggy cloud settles in my head, a feeling as if I've both overslept and underslept at the same time. I still haven't moved at all, but my arms are curled between our bodies and I fear that if I don't shift their position soon, they might just fall off.

But I'm rescued from further consideration because I realize that Peeta's blue eyes are searching down into my newly awakened face, wondering now if it's really okay to speak.


	3. Chapter 3

For some reason I feel suddenly bashful, or maybe embarrassed, or some other wordless uncomfortable thing when I catch Peeta's eyes trained on me. I wasn't even ready to look him in the face yet, expecting him to be sleeping so that I could lay and collect my unorganized and exhausted thoughts, but I saw the blue from the tips of my eyes just as vividly as the light in his apartment caught my attention last night. I was startled at first, but then the strangest vulnerability began prickling throughout my body and I was lost in the expansive sea of his penetrating eyes, like they were searching for something deep inside the grayish woods of my own but just haven't ventured far enough inside yet.

Our eyes were only glued for a few short seconds, about the time it would take a daydreaming person to realize that they were doing so whilst being watched, before I instinctively close my eyes and reposition my gaze into the dark fabric of his shirt.

He doesn't respond with much of anything. No movement, no change in his steady and rhythmic breathing, and the rate at which he aspirated was so calm and regulated that it's no wonder I thought he was asleep at first. Not even the arm that's still draped over me makes any indication that it's in a dangerous position as it rests comfortably across the groove of my waist. His non-shifting being is actually more worrisome to me than a fidgety Peeta because that means he's probably lost in his head again, not necessarily having any sort of flashback but most definitely trying to sort out everything for himself. He may have even been tossing around thoughts all night as I lay here, tears stained and dried over my face, probably mumbling as I tend to do these days. That is, if I'm not screaming.

"You dreamed about me last night. Real or not real?"

I nearly jump at his voice, not expecting the sound nor the question, and I'm so surprised that I look up again with a curious expression, his own features softly shifting into a more serious angle.

"I... not real, I think. I don't really remember what I was dreaming about though," I mutter, a little hoarsely. "Why?"

"You said my name in your sleep," he says with a furrowed brow, almost as if he doesn't believe the fact, or maybe he thinks that I'm hiding something from him.

I'm not sure what to say after I see his reaction, worried that I had indeed made the wrong decision about seeking comfort so soon in Peeta, but also concerned with what I may have indeed been dreaming about if I was saying his name in my sleep.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, "I honestly don't remember any dreams last night, good or bad."

"If you didn't remember anything, not even a nightmare, then why were you crying?" he asks a bit too coolly, as if my next response will gauge how much trust he should put in my last phrase. The way he asks implies that I should have no other reason to cry other than the fact that I've woken from a nightmare, which begins to kindle an ember of anger in my chest. Does he have to be so abrasive with me, so... callous? How many other reasons should I have to explain as to why I'd be so genuinely upset? Or am I still being plagued by sensitivity to the point that I can't even reason with him anymore, even less myself?

I give up though, maybe too easily, but I'm already weaseling out from under his arm and heading for the door.

"I'm not sure that you care enough to really understand right now, so it's pointless to try and explain. I'm sorry that I came over last night," I murmur before shutting the door behind me and make my way back home.

I stop a few feet from my front door when I smell the familiar scent of eggs and bacon and know that Greasy Sae has already stopped over to make me breakfast. Somehow she must've known that I had gone to Peeta's, and this fact alone is enough to make me turn on my heels and head straight for the Meadow. I just need to escape for a little while, avoid questions that I don't want or simply can't answer, and clear my head with the fresh aroma of wilderness for a while.

I reach the old fence that used to bar my entryway, which is now propped open with sticks and I've only got to hunch over a few degrees to make it under without scraping along the back of the hunting jacket. Once I've gotten to the first few saplings of my Meadow, I kick off my slippers and begin navigating my way through the grass and roots, so familiar a trek now that it's become second nature to travel and I can freely contemplate my situation.

Peeta is still largely suspicious of my actions, that much is for certain. It does make me wonder why he wouldn't have pushed me away last night though, if he felt the same way then too, weary and cautious as if I were always misleading him. Maybe I really did look so pathetic that even someone who's been conditioned to despise every fiber of my being would be willing to shelter me for the night. But even then, he could have let me sleep by myself and retreat to his own bed, or even sat in front of the fire awhile until I awoke. When I had initially roused in the blinking sunlight, his body heat so clearly pouring out against my flesh, I was reminded of the numberless nights we had shared curled against each other, protecting one another from the pain. There should've been no reason in his mind to justify his actions, that much I'm sure of.

In seemingly no time at all I've reached my rock, our old rock, Gale and I's major meeting place. I don't need to sit there any longer and pretend he's coming back because it's been months since I've heard anything from him and I don't really care at this point either. It was strange and scary at first to feel relieved with his distance from me, painful also in some ways because I am so utterly alone here now. But somewhere deep inside my heart I've reconciled with the fact that we are just too alike, Gale and I. Brother and sister, best friends, and other sorts of lighter love I can honestly say I've felt towards Gale, but never romantic. I have certainly been confused in the past, those few fleeting times we had shared a kiss, the gut-wrenching hurt I've felt if he were in pain, but I can't reason with myself that during any of those times I've ever felt a passionate and longing pull towards him.

But it's been clear since the terrors of the first Games that there would be no Gale AND Peeta with whom I could share my love, not with the way that their feelings were so out in the open for me to contemplate. I would've had to choose myself one day, but now the dice have been rolled and Gale is off in District 2 doing who knows what and Peeta, while not throwing direct threats my way or trying to physically hurt me anymore, hasn't shown much progress in even the friendship department let alone the romantic one.

But even as I'm stripping off my father's jacket and nightshirt, the question still weighs me down as to why. I cut through the almost icy surface of the lake, hands pointed above my head and bowing under the water with the silence of nature pressing in from all sides, and I consider a single thought: If Peeta indeed let me inside last night, tried his best to comfort me and stop the crying at first and even throughout the night, then he must at least be trying.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time I feel up for leaving the cool numbness of the lake, the sun has burst its way through most of the surrounding trees to warm the grass and foliage below it. I wring out my hair a bit, which hasn't quite grown back to normalcy yet, and choose a soft patch of grass on which to lounge. It's strange now how different the warm rays feel on my body, ever since the… parachute mishap. Certain places feel the same because the fire graciously overlooked them, but the areas with the pink-hued grafted skin are much more sensitive to the change in temperature, and the mangled, scarred bits that were declared salvageable are partially numbed due to nerve damage. It elicits an odd feeling of being in pieces, a sensation too familiar to be culminated outwardly on my skin, because I clearly have enough of a problem hiding this fact as it is.

I was probably treading the lake for a good two or three hours because the sun is so high in the sky now that it's just barely beginning to dip westward. I got a lot of deep thinking out of the way beneath the soft current, a task that needed to be done for a long time now, but I had just been too numb and too scarred to backtrack very far without imminent failure. This sort of thing, or at least as far as the doctors say, is much easier to do with a trustworthy friend or therapist to be there and help separate the fact from the feel. But I don't have anyone like that anymore, so I've got to trudge through the grime on my own and let the foliage and scuttling of the forest distract me enough for me to keep an even keel throughout the self-therapy session.

So as I raise my arms behind my head and breathe in the sweet, fresh aroma of my empty Meadow, I begin to tick off things I've covered in my head thus far.

Fact one: Continuing to wallow through life as I have been is not only going to keep me depressingly morbid all the time, but it's also effectively halting any progress or future that could be paved in place of the trauma that I've experienced. After all, as they say, the past is supposed to stay in the past. It's been months since the last signs of war had faded from Panem, however temporary that may be, but that trait itself is a perfect reason for me to buck up and try to normalize my life again. What if some day from now, whether that's in decades or a few meager months, another division among our people is formed somehow? What if the Districts, in their previous slave-like repression, return again? Nobody can predict the future, so it's up to me to try and change my habits for the better and at least start pretending that life's worth living. Eventually, I'd like to believe it too. But for right now, I resolve to attempt to better my outlook on life in general, with the unfortunate exclusion of my nightmarish tendencies for the moment.

Two: I've got to try and control the nightmares. Refusing home pharmaceutical treatment from the hospital probably isn't helping, but I've seen some of the war survivors on those powerful herbal mixtures before and I'd rather feel the pain and terror than nothing at all. Morphling is completely out of the question. Sleeping serum could work temporarily, but either I'll keep needing more of it to knock me out dreamlessly or it'll become a requirement to get any sleep at all, both of which I'd like to avoid if at all possible. So unless I find some sort of soothing herb to try out in the Hob, I really feel like the only way I'll beat my terrifying unconsciousness in a healthy way is through Peeta.

Three, and this is a big one: I've got to try as hard as I can to mend my relationship with Peeta. I felt so bitter and abandoned for the longest time after District 13 had finally agreed to rescue him from the torture of the Capitol and he returned with nothing but an unconquerable hatred for everything about me. But that was probably the most selfish I had ever acted with Peeta so far. He was merely a pawn used by the Capitol to hurt me, to break my resolve and crush my spirit, but in the end of it all it was Peeta who was most hurt by the conditioning. Even to this day he has trouble realizing what's fact and fiction, has terrible and incapacitating flashbacks at times, and on top of the mental scrambling of his memories he's had to withstand horrible torture as well.

Stepping back from the most present dilemma involving the boy with the bread, there's also the fact that he so selflessly and wholeheartedly poured himself into me, protected me with every fiber of his being, declared his pure and willing love and adoration for me on more than one occasion to the entire viewing world. But when have I ever truly returned his affections with more than an empty screen kiss or choreographed hand hold? Sure, there have been raw and rare moments that I let slip my desire to preserve his life, my enjoyment of his company, the subtle glances and flushes of emotion that I keep so carefully hidden from most… but I feel as if his openheartedness was returned with barely the creak of a door in exchange. And now that his memories of us and his love for me have effectively been erased for him to start from scratch, I've realized that there's emptiness in me where his devotion used to be. I was always so preoccupied with so many other things, and there was also Gale that complicated things, and I never honestly stopped to consider how deep his love may run, or how devoted he may really be to me, or most importantly, how I truly felt about it.

I can see the deep orange of the setting sun through my eyelids, and suddenly my thoughts fill with everything I know about Peeta: his appearance, likes and dislikes, skills and quirks, things he's told me and things I've observed on my own, and then the memories of us start colliding into that mix. But not just the friendly passing waves or the mild small-talk, the truly emotionally-charged moments and I'm sad to realize how few and far between they really are. But now that all of my own weakness and dedication has been rendered so clearly to me, I can work to fix it and just hope that I'm not too late.

It's then I also realize that the optimism I lack in life and the nightmare plague of my sleeping world would both be essentially solved as long as I work toward getting Peeta to love me again, and that becomes my waking mantra as I gather my nightshirt and hunting jacket from the forest floor and prepare to head home.

But the most crucial thing to remind myself is that I'm not trying to get Peeta to love me out of selfishness now. I'm trying to return the passion for life that he once had a long time ago that made him so… pure and lovable.

**Author's Note: I PERSONALLY think this chapter is a little wordy and possibly even boring, but I felt the need to throw in some sort of Katniss epiphany where she really takes time to inflect and dissect what's been going through her head after so much repression. This still only summarizes the 'tip of the iceberg', but I don't want to bore you all to death either. ;D Rest assured that after this chapter there should be more socializing and interaction with someone other than herself! God, she's so selfish… ;)**

**Oh before I forget! Thanks for all the great feedback and reviews so far, too! It really helps inspire me to write more, and more frequently!  
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	5. Chapter 5

It's not in my nature to care much about how others view me, especially since District 12 had always been so poor that everyone was generally on the same level of unkemptness, but I feel a little self-conscious as I wander back home in nothing but a nightshirt and my father's hunting jacket. It's probably more a matter of modesty than anything, but I purposely avoid the main roads through town and instead trek behind the houses and shops towards Victor's Village. Not many people are able to hang around because of all the rebuilding, so I manage to make it there without many straying eyes wondering about me. I particularly would like to try and avoid Peeta, at least for tonight. There's a lingering sense of embarrassment in me because of what happened with him, and I feel like I need to work more on my attitude about a lot of things before I try and fix things between us on any sort of level.

But as usual, luck is rarely ever in my favor around here, despite the lack of the Games. I was so caught up in my thoughts that even after entering my house and rightly guessing that Greasy Sae would be there finishing up dinner, I hadn't even considered the possibility of Peeta there helping her out as well.

I froze in the doorway in mid-motion, hanging my father's jacket on the coat rack and becoming a very convincing deer caught in headlights, my eyes wider than the plates that Sae was now arranging on the table.

"About time you make your way home, Katniss. Dinner's just about ready, why don't you clean yourself up?" she asks nonchalantly as I slowly begin to defrost, the aromatic scent of herbs and game filling my nostrils.

I don't say anything and though I'm afraid to look at Peeta, I can see from the corner of my eye as I make my way to the stairs that he's made some fresh cheese rolls and has been arranging them carefully on a serving plate. He doesn't look at me either.

When I'm upstairs, I manage to find my lungs again and how to work them, and I decide to take a quick shower since I've spent the better part of the day in the Meadow. I actually don't recall the last time I'd showered, or rather, felt that I had the energy to survive one. The nightshirt is stained in places with dirt and there are a few patches of dried water from the lake, so I toss it into the corner of my room where other dirty laundry has developed over the past few weeks. I make a mental note to try and take care of some of the chores around the house sometime as I shower and dry myself in record time.

The heat of the water made me feel a bit fatigued, but I don't let that slow me down for once. I force myself to look in the mirror and braid back my damp hair, the same braid my mother taught me to make, and then raid the drawers of clothing I haven't really examined since coming home. There's a mixture of nice quality District wear and some of the less over-the-top fashions from the Capitol, but I was never much for clothing coordination so I randomly pick out two articles: a pair of straight leg jeans with tiny silver accents along the seams and a sleeveless green top. They fit perfectly, and I have to wonder whether Cinna had any involvement in my home wardrobe, but I push down the painful twinge in my gut at remembering while grabbing a pair of clean socks and making my way downstairs.

As I'm descending the stairs, I decide that I'll be as neutral and civil as possible during dinner. Not overly pleasant, not moody, not concerned about Peeta or outwardly bothered by the other night, just… bland. The smell of the food actually causes my stomach to softly whine in anticipation, an almost foreign feeling nowadays, but I take it as a good sign and not think on it any further as I turn the corner to the main room.

No, wrong, bad. Bad sign. Hunger all but leaves me when my eyes wander into the kitchen and there's no sign of Greasy Sae, but the back of Peeta's blond head as clear as day as he's turned away working on some indistinguishable food item at the counter. I stop again, similarly as earlier but this time he doesn't know I'm here yet, and I close my eyes to take a deep breath. Why am I even reacting like this in the first place? Greasy Sae doesn't need to be here to hold my hand. It's just dinner… food consumed by people all the time, based on a similar need for daily sustenance. We can keep things civil… I can keep things civil. I can be even-headed, eat a meal, and then clean up on my own when Peeta leaves, and that will be that.

I open my eyes and he's still turned around at the counter. Almost silently I step closer to the kitchen, the smell really impossible to ignore when you're this close to the source. There's a long, shallow pot of some sort of stew on the table, the cheese rolls I saw earlier are heaped together in a patterned pile alongside some fresh butter, and a plate holding a steaming arrangement of carrots and potatoes waits at the opposite end. It all looks… fairly appetizing.

"Katniss, can you do me a favor and grab some glasses from the cabinet?"

That is the second time in a day that Peeta's voice made me jump, and I don't like it.

**Author's Note: Running a bit out of time tonight, so I did as well as I could with this chapter, even though the word count is lame! I don't like waiting too many days between chapters and I didn't want to go the whole weekend without posting, so here you go! I figured I'd leave you guys on a cliffhanger because even I'm excited to find out how dinner plays out. XD And as always, R&R please, thanks for following along and for all of the heaps of emails I tend to get on a daily basis!  
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	6. Chapter 6

I'm honestly a little hurt by the tone of Peeta's voice. It wasn't as if he were harsh or mean in any way, but he asked the question as if he were disregarding that the other night even happened, as if we were simple acquaintances brought together by a similar need for food and nothing had ever been any different in our relationship. I'm sure I feel a blend of other negative things too, but in the split second it took me to register the initial feeling, I manage to convince myself that it might be for the best that he pretends it never happened… for the time being, anyway.

I actually have no idea where the glasses are kept in my house because I've never really bothered to familiarize myself with the kitchen. The word 'cabinet' is a pretty ambiguous term as I peer around at the numerous sets of doors that line the room. With Greasy Sae's daily trips to make sure I eat, there's no need for me to aimlessly forage or explore much, and so I spend a few moments opening random cupboards as far from Peeta as possible. In my quick and mostly silent searching, I find out that I have a lot more kitchenware than I probably could ever use on my own, and still haven't come across anything resembling a drinking glass, or any sort of glass product whatsoever. I'm nearing Peeta more and more in my search and I can feel the tips of my ears turning red in some confusing mixture of emotion, but just as my search leads me to the cabinet above his head, he turns around in the opposite direction carrying a tray of something towards the small cooling unit plugged into the wall.

Though it doesn't hold any glassware, the cabinet at least yields a colorful arrangement of plastic and ceramic drinking cups. Not wanting to wander around aimlessly anymore, I decide the ceramic cups have more decorative properties than the plastic and grab two before shutting the door and moving to the table. As I'd feared, there are only two place settings at the table, but the food looks bountiful and delicious as it sits delicately arranged along the center of the table. I move to place the cups at both settings and notice that one of them is a brilliant mixture of orange and red, something I immediately connect with a memory of Peeta. The corners of my mouth turn up a bit, both in a fond and sad expression and I take my seat opposite the sunset cup, training my eyes on the expanse of food before me so they don't wander after my acquaintance by the cooler.

I wait only a few moments before Peeta also joins the table, and he's carrying a carafe of juice which he pours for me and himself. Without looking him in the face, I feel like he might've paused in the tiniest way as he held his cup, maybe even pondered the colors and whether it was mere coincidence that it was his favorite color. But he doesn't say anything after finishing his task; he just sets the carafe on the edge of the table and surveys the food for himself.

"The pot there in the middle is Sae's attempt at making lamb stew, but I haven't tried it for myself so I don't know how well she did," Peeta began to explain, his voice even and a little too calm for his normal self. "She was going to eat here also, but her granddaughter hurt her ankle and Sae needed to take her to the medical building."

So that's the story she was using. There was no doubt in my mind that Sae had set this up, ever since she inadvertently found out that I had spent the night at Peeta's house. Little does she know, however, that this forced time together might just push us farther apart if I can't keep my emotions in check.

"Oh, that's unfortunate," I say in a voice much smaller than my own, resisting the urge to bite on one of my fingernails. "But the stew sounds good."

"I think everything smells pretty decent, at least," he comments as he moves to offer me the serving spoon for the stew.

I take the utensil and notice that he's wearing long sleeves despite the temperate climate outside, a button-down shirt that's a pleasant light blue color. Before thinking, my eyes flick up to meet his own in some attempt at comparing the blues, but he's peering instead at the bareness of my arms, at what I assume is the uneven and unmatched skin tone of my body. Almost instantly his eyes reposition on my face and he's wearing the strangest expression that I can't place, but he seems embarrassed that I've caught his wandering eyes as he takes a roll from the heap and breaks it in two, biting into half of it before discussing the juice he had poured earlier.

"So, that's a really great plum juice I picked up from the Hob. It's a little bitter, but it tastes great with the rolls," he says nonchalantly as he takes a swig with his bite of bread.

I tilt an eyebrow and feign noticing his glance as I push down the thousand thoughts that want to bubble into my mind, my concentration on the act of spooning stew into the bowl in front of me. It really does smell delicious, perhaps not as enticing as the old Capitol's version of the stuff, but I'm willing to at least try it if I can manage to hold onto my brief encounter with hunger. I grab a few of the carrots and potatoes as well because I feel obligated to try a little bit of everything. I also take a cheese roll, both to humor Peeta's theory about the plum juice and because I've always loved them regardless of any assumed obligation or theories.

As I try bits of the food, I make sure to use these new tastes to kindle our pathetic conversation, commenting on flavors and herbs and how the plum juice does go well with the bread. The stew's not half bad either, especially when I'm told by Peeta that Sae only had about half a can of it to try herself before guesstimating its ingredients. The conversation itself goes light and friendly enough, though I feel so conflicted with the familiarity and nostalgia that I harbor for Peeta. It's hard to suppress feelings when they have to do with unrequited love, which grimly reminds me of the end of the first Games, when Peeta realized that my affections for him were primarily a strategy for survival. So because of this fact, I decide to suck it up and make the best of the meal and conversation while I can. But soon enough my shrunken stomach is filled to capacity and I admit defeat.

"Phew, I don't think I could eat another bite," I whine, a hand over my stuffed belly as I slump down a bit in my chair.

"Oh no, I should've warned you about dessert," he says suddenly, scooting out from across the table and moving the tray of rolls off the table to make room. He goes to the cooler and retrieves a small silver tray of what seem to be tiny cakes before setting them in place of the rolls on the table. I lean in to get a closer look despite my fullness and have to raise my eyebrows at the delicate intricacies of the little desserts. Each tiny cake is dressed in a smooth coat of white icing. Tiny, perfect red and pink roses made entirely from icing lay on one corner of each of the cakes, the tips of their petals lightly dusted with a pearl-colored shimmer. But the most impressive part of the arrangement is the random pattern of ivy that runs around the top and edges of each cake, connecting each of the two roses on the cake in a complicated assortment of vines and leaves. Before I can offer appreciation for the detail, Peeta interrupts my thought.

"I made these sort of to try and apologize for this morning," he began, and I feel as though ice water had just been poured down my spinal column. He actually sounds pretty genuine too, which throws off all expectations I had previously about his possible intentions. "It wasn't any of my business to ask you those questions when you were so upset the night before, and as a… friend, I should have respected you more than to hound you about things. I'm sorry."

He's looking into my eyes now, and if I hadn't caught the glance by mistake I might not have fell into the trap of them, but it's too late for me now. I feel so exposed like this, staring across the table at him while he expects some sort of answer from me, but all I can do is try not to get all emotional again because I had never expected him to apologize at all, let alone bring it up. After I recover from my shocked face, I shake my head a little and press my lips together, my eyes wandering around my fidgety hands.

"I should be the one apologizing," I said. "I shouldn't have come over so late and…"

"No. Katniss, wait, listen to me."

I stop and find his eyes again, and they're boring into me now with the strangest intensity that I can't bear to look away properly. I end up darting my eyes from the wall or the floor back into his face, trying to avoid the invasion.

"I feel like I've been too hostile with you lately. Even though these memories… these visions I have that I've been working on confuse me a lot, I'm starting to get to know certain things. I'm not sure what to think a lot of the time, I'll admit that. But one thing I do know that keeps nagging at me is that… well, as far as I know, you haven't tried hurting me or manipulating me since District 13 rescued me. I know this because I've been talking to others on top of sorting through my memories; I mean it's a work-in-progress but… I don't feel like it's right to act that way toward you anymore, and I'm sorry."

He says the last bit of this little speech with an exasperated sort of tone, as if he'd been wanting to say this for a while now but never had a chance. But it also seems like he stopped himself before revealing anymore inside glimpses of his head. It takes me a few moments to gather the gist of what he said, and I nod slowly before lifting one of the perfect roses from the nearest cake and dissolving its creamy sweetness in my mouth.

"Okay," I said tentatively with a mouthful of icing. "Apology accepted, I guess."

I smile a little, and the dye from the rose must've gotten on my mouth and teeth because Peeta's smirking now and reaching for one of the tiny cakes himself, shoving it whole into his mouth which stretches his cheeks out like a tiny creature I've seen in the Meadow.

"Friends we are, then," he concludes thickly, the cake nearly sputtering down the front of his shirt.


End file.
